38 The Twenty-third General Meeting. 
lived with the Britons on friendly terms. He was disposed to believe 
that they belonged to the early Roman period—he did not say to 
the post-Roman period, Their formation indicated a temple of 
some kind, and if they looked at Scripture they would find that 
Gilgal meant an assembly of stones—a place of assembly and inter- 
ment. Was is not a great and grand central place of worship? Dr. 
Buckland himself had put it as the Westminster Abbey of the 
Ancient Britons, and did not the tumuli around them present the 
earliest evidence of the Britons’ residence amongst the Druids as a 
religious people? He was certainly prepared to stick to the idea 
that it was a Druidical temple. It was an early Oriental custom to 
erect circles of stone for purposes of worship, and that applied to the 
Israelites themselves. All he could say was that what they saw 
around them showed that the people who erected Stonehenge were 
accustomed to work in stone. 
Sir Jonn Luszock said that Mr. Parker was one of the best 
archzologists in this or any other country, and if he ventured to 
differ from some of his opinions, it was really because it was best to 
state the honest truth in regard to one’s own belief. There was still a 
great deal of mystery about that venerable erection, and in all 
probability the mystery would continue to exist. Perhaps that very 
mystery was one of its greatest attractions. They could not speak 
positively as to its origin or its purpose; they could only express 
their opinions and the reasons that induced them to form them, and 
every one must judge for himself. It had been stated that one great 
clue to the meaning of the monument was to be found in the tumuli 
that surrounded it. There were more tumuli around it than were 
to be found on any corresponding area in the island, and they might 
fairly conclude that the majority of them belonged to the same period 
as Stonehenge—though doubtless not in the same year, probably not 
in the same century. He believed they would all agree that Stone- 
henge and the tumuli around it represented one aspect of English 
history, and'that nobody could understand the history of England who 
had not made the tour of Wiltshire. If the tumuli were Roman they 
would contain glass, pottery, coins, and objects and weapons of iron. 
Roman coins were found in hundreds in other places, but not a coin 
